Setting up AntMiner S1 mini-farm in a warehouse

[hheellll]

I own a 10,000 square foot warehouse that I use for various realspace purposes. I sell industrial surplus equipment, welders etc.

I have three phase 220v in my warehouse, as well as a small machine shop. I am a Linux guy (20 years) and I am comfortable with networking, ssh, scripts, perl etc.

I have gotten bit by the bitcoin mining bug and purchased a few S1's on ebay, that I am running right now.

I want to try using them to mine bitcoins, and if I lose money on this, no big deal. I have a decent amount of capital and can risk a bit of money. This is just an introduction.

To go on to a few questions.

1. What is the actual "safe" voltage range for a non-overclocked AntMiner S1? Is it OK to supply them with 11v? 14v? 13v? Anyone knows? I would like to try to run them from a three phase MIG welder, and want to gauge how sensitive they aer to input voltage.

2. If I have, say, a dozen of S1's, and set them up as separate workers in one pool, will they use 12 times the bandwidth that would be used by one worker? Or would the pool adjust difficulty?

3. I have a very poor internet connection (DSL) and this is the best I have, 2 megabit down and 512k up. I cannot get comcast here. Will I be able to keep up with my bandwidth with 20 antminers?

4. Is there a way to organize a "sub-pool" of my workers, that I can repoint to any given internet pool like btcguild or ghash, instead of repointing all my S1's individually?

5. Has anyone tried to manage those S1's by scripts. I have a bunch of servers already, that I manage with scripts and it is awesome, a huge time saver.

6. On ebay, they sell cheaply 240v power supplies "Dell FW414 PowerEdge 6950 1570W Power Supply C1570P-00 ". I really like the fact that they are 240v, as I can run three of them on three legs of three phase for good phase balance.

Can I use one of them (rated for 129amp) to supply 5 antminers S1's? The S1's, in my experience, eat about 20A per antminer. So they would consume roughly 100A. Is my math wrong?

7. Can I safely run non-overclocked S1's at the ambient temperature of 100 degrees F? This is my normal summer temperature.

8. Can I somehow set up mining so that I participate in pools on aa percentage basis. For example, I devote 60% of my resources to pool A, and 40% to pool B.

Thanks, guys! I promise that if I write scripts to manage them, I will share them under the GPL, as a token of appreciation of the open source community.

[MWNinja]

1. What is the actual "safe" voltage range for a non-overclocked AntMiner S1? Is it OK to supply them with 11v? 14v? 13v? Anyone knows? I would like to try to run them from a three phase MIG welder, and want to gauge how sensitive they aer to input voltage.

Don't do this.  Get server power supplies if you need a cheap solution.

2. If I have, say, a dozen of S1's, and set them up as separate workers in one pool, will they use 12 times the bandwidth that would be used by one worker? Or would the pool adjust difficulty?

Bandwidth is minimal even for huge farms.

3. I have a very poor internet connection (DSL) and this is the best I have, 2 megabit down and 512k up. I cannot get comcast here. Will I be able to keep up with my bandwidth with 20 antminers?

You will lose shares for shitty internet, costing you money.  It's the latency more than the bandwidth.

4. Is there a way to organize a "sub-pool" of my workers, that I can repoint to any given internet pool like btcguild or ghash, instead of repointing all my S1's individually?

You can point them to bfgminer running a proxy and go wild from there. This requires the latest firmware.

5. Has anyone tried to manage those S1's by scripts. I have a bunch of servers already, that I manage with scripts and it is awesome, a huge time saver.

There are lots of fun management interfaces, you'll have fun with part of the mining experience.

6. On ebay, they sell cheaply 240v power supplies "Dell FW414 PowerEdge 6950 1570W Power Supply C1570P-00 ". I really like the fact that they are 240v, as I can run three of them on three legs of three phase for good phase balance.

Can I use one of them (rated for 129amp) to supply 5 antminers S1's? The S1's, in my experience, eat about 20A per antminer. So they would consume roughly 100A. Is my math wrong?
Probably best for 4 clocked at 393.3, once you down clock and undervolt in a few months you'll be able to eliminate some power supplies.

7. Can I safely run non-overclocked S1's at the ambient temperature of 100 degrees F? This is my normal summer temperature.
They do pretty well in hot environments.  You have to have airflow though; I can't stress that enough.

8. Can I somehow set up mining so that I participate in pools on aa percentage basis. For example, I devote 60% of my resources to pool A, and 40% to pool B.
Yes you can do that by pointing them all to bfgminer running a proxy, then using bfgminer allocate the effort to different pools using a load-balance strategy.

[Zelek Uther]

2. If I have, say, a dozen of S1's, and set them up as separate workers in one pool, will they use 12 times the bandwidth that would be used by one worker? Or would the pool adjust difficulty?

Bandwidth is minimal even for huge farms.

Zelek: agreed. Just to clarify: 12 S1s will use 12 times the bandwidth of one S1 (unless you implement point 4 below). However, as stated this is still not much bandwidth. I measured it one time for one miner for a whole week, but I can't remember the figure. It wasn't much. You never see any discussions here about people hitting network bandwidth limitations, it's that minimal. Usually the first limitation you hit is power draw.

3. I have a very poor internet connection (DSL) and this is the best I have, 2 megabit down and 512k up. I cannot get comcast here. Will I be able to keep up with my bandwidth with 20 antminers?

You will lose shares for shitty internet, costing you money.  It's the latency more than the bandwidth.

Zelek: your bandwidth is not a problem, what is it that is poor about your connection?

4. Is there a way to organize a "sub-pool" of my workers, that I can repoint to any given internet pool like btcguild or ghash, instead of repointing all my S1's individually?

You can point them to bfgminer running a proxy and go wild from there. This requires the latest firmware.

Zelek: This gives you the network usage of a single miner, but also it will appear as a single worker at the pool. This has pros and cons. It is a little less easy to troubleshoot from the pool as you won't see so easily that a miner is down... just keep an eye on your total hashrate, if a miner is down the only indicator will be a slight drop in hashrate. One advantage is that you can swap pools easily. Personally I've found a pool I like so that wouldn't be of interest to me.

About pools. My tip is to take the top two or three pools you are interested in and run an identical miner on each (e.g. an S1). Have a special account for each one so that their earnings are tracked individually.  Switch on the power to all (2 or 3) miners at the same time. Then keep track of them over a month*. This allows you to compare pools over the same time period, with the same mining difficulty adjustments, using the same mining hardware and network connection. That removes those factors and leaves the only difference being the pools.

* Edit: it has to be a decent time period like a month or more.  Anything less and you don't get an accurate picture. I laugh when people say that they have been mining on Pool X for a couple of hours, or a day, and complain that the payout isn't as much as another pool. Pool X may have just had bad luck that day... or this other wonderful Pool Y may have just had good luck.

If you're comfortable with Linux, consider running P2Pool. It's a great pool, plus you'll be running a Bitcoin Node.

[black3000gt]

Running at 240 your ants will only use about 2amps overclocked to 200gh.

[philipma1957]

I own a 10,000 square foot warehouse that I use for various realspace purposes. I sell industrial surplus equipment, welders etc.

I have three phase 220v in my warehouse, as well as a small machine shop. I am a Linux guy (20 years) and I am comfortable with networking, ssh, scripts, perl etc.

I have gotten bit by the bitcoin mining bug and purchased a few S1's on ebay, that I am running right now.

I want to try using them to mine bitcoins, and if I lose money on this, no big deal. I have a decent amount of capital and can risk a bit of money. This is just an introduction.

To go on to a few questions.

1. What is the actual "safe" voltage range for a non-overclocked AntMiner S1? Is it OK to supply them with 11v? 14v? 13v? Anyone knows? I would like to try to run them from a three phase MIG welder, and want to gauge how sensitive they aer to input voltage.

2. If I have, say, a dozen of S1's, and set them up as separate workers in one pool, will they use 12 times the bandwidth that would be used by one worker? Or would the pool adjust difficulty?

3. I have a very poor internet connection (DSL) and this is the best I have, 2 megabit down and 512k up. I cannot get comcast here. Will I be able to keep up with my bandwidth with 20 antminers?

4. Is there a way to organize a "sub-pool" of my workers, that I can repoint to any given internet pool like btcguild or ghash, instead of repointing all my S1's individually?

5. Has anyone tried to manage those S1's by scripts. I have a bunch of servers already, that I manage with scripts and it is awesome, a huge time saver.

6. On ebay, they sell cheaply 240v power supplies "Dell FW414 PowerEdge 6950 1570W Power Supply C1570P-00 ". I really like the fact that they are 240v, as I can run three of them on three legs of three phase for good phase balance.

Can I use one of them (rated for 129amp) to supply 5 antminers S1's? The S1's, in my experience, eat about 20A per antminer. So they would consume roughly 100A. Is my math wrong?

7. Can I safely run non-overclocked S1's at the ambient temperature of 100 degrees F? This is my normal summer temperature.

8. Can I somehow set up mining so that I participate in pools on aa percentage basis. For example, I devote 60% of my resources to pool A, and 40% to pool B.

Thanks, guys! I promise that if I write scripts to manage them, I will share them under the GPL, as a token of appreciation of the open source community.

hey you need  fans at 100 f  and you need a fan speed controller.

  I have perfect cheap cooling gear for you.  Not as many as you may need but they will help cool the gear off. 

[philipma1957]

look at these second pull fans.





attach with 4 pipe cleaners

[philipma1957]

powered by the antminer.

I have 6 of them extra.

[philipma1957]

lastly check out my ebay listing for ac fans


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=151289841919&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT




if you have a warehouse and it is 100f you will need fans.  so even though I may not have enough if you are usa these are a start.

pm me if you have an interest. and are in the usa.

The ac fans with the variac would be very helpful .  And I want to offload them as I do not need them.  So cheap is the idea here.

The dc fans are also not needed in my setup and would be good for you. since they are good and move much air. 

These fans are deltas and they are loud but hey you are in a warehouse.

here is where I got them

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151276722479?ssPageName=

[aztecminer]

be sure to let us know how running ants in 100 degree temps goes ??

[philipma1957]

be sure to let us know how running ants in 100 degree temps goes ??

yeah well if he is in the states  I could send him some fans because he will need them.

the deltas as a pull fan are loud but pull 160 cfm.  

If he sets 1 s-1 up adds the delta   like the photos above and it overheats he could end the experiment right then and there.

here is one s-1 at 393 freq  in an 80 f room with the add-on fan.  so the stock push fan has a lot left as it can go over 3000 rpm.

the temps are good.

[lowbander80]

be sure to let us know how running ants in 100 degree temps goes ??

yeah well if he is in the states  I could send him some fans because he will need them.

the deltas as a pull fan are loud but pull 160 cfm.  

If he sets 1 s-1 up adds the delta   like the photos above and it overheats he could end the experiment right then and there.

here is one s-1 at 393 freq  in an 80 f room with the add-on fan.  so the stock push fan has a lot left as it can go over 3000 rpm.

the temps are good.

A common idea is to run the basic fan to maximum also.If it fails it will just stop running
and you can replace it...In warmer climate like in the mediteranean 45 is my running temp in midday
and run happy at 393mhz

[hheellll]

OK, guys, thanks a lot. Right now I have three antminers running. I tried a couple of things for running them: 1) a military 12v battery charger, and 2) Dell Poweredge 2950 power supply.

The Dell power supply is cheap only $12 with free shipping. It seems to work best, very easy to solder on proper connections. It can easily run two antminers.

It also accepts 110 and 220 volts without problems. The only minus is that it is loud, but I do not care too much, this being a warehouse.

I will be making "basic bitcoin mining rigs" comprised of two S1's, a Dell power supply in the middle, bolted together, and use them as my basic building block.

I will post updates once I get more of them running.

[philipma1957]

yeah photos  and let us know about the cooling of them.

[hheellll]

yeah photos  and let us know about the cooling of them.

Photos and description are here: http://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Bitcoin-Mining-Farm/

[hheellll]

I also wanted to mention that I wrote some shell scripts for setting up those AntMiners. The scripts connect to 192.168.1.99 an do the following:

1) Set desired IP address, routing an DNS
2) Set preferred bitcoin pool
3) Set SSH authorized keys

This is great and setting up each new antminer takes only 10 seconds.

[Trends]

Nice and efficent setup with the balanced load!
Have you tried to find a fan mod for your power supplies to base speed on temp? I know there was one for my HP's which are wired as yours (sans the 3 phase)

[hheellll]

I have not tried to find that fan mod. It is a good question!

These machines are in a corner and the noise is tolerable.

I think that I will just live with it for the next 200 days or however it takes to make running these miners cost more in electric than their bitcoin profits.

[aztecminer]

be sure to let us know how running ants in 100 degree temps goes ??

yeah well if he is in the states  I could send him some fans because he will need them.

the deltas as a pull fan are loud but pull 160 cfm.  

If he sets 1 s-1 up adds the delta   like the photos above and it overheats he could end the experiment right then and there.

here is one s-1 at 393 freq  in an 80 f room with the add-on fan.  so the stock push fan has a lot left as it can go over 3000 rpm.

the temps are good.

that sounds good. i have ordered some fans for my ants. i bet about 5 or 6 degrees of your temp drops is from those heatsinks too. my heatsinks give me about that much with good airflow . i am about to find out how much cooler i can get them by adding exhaust fans. thanks for the inspiration to finally pull the trigger on those exhaust fans.

[zulover]

what are you using for cooling, im in a similar plan.

[CoinToTheMax]

Asi understand you do not need any kind of cooling, as it is a big place and it is well cooled.